


it's not as if (i've lost my mind)

by guiltylights



Category: Persona 4, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Rise is an angsty teenager but is Having None Of Adachi's bullshit, Suicide Attempt, basically Adachi is a demon and he's trying to convince Rise to work with him, demon!Adachi, this is based off of a song from Beetlejuice the Musical, well suicide is treated pretty casually so be warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24853831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guiltylights/pseuds/guiltylights
Summary: ‘Things like me?’ The demon barks out a short laugh. ‘Kids these days. Rude and getting ruder.’‘Oh, I’msorry—am I supposed to give a creature like yourespect?’Rise asks, snarky.The demon’s eyes flash gold.‘Watch it, girlie,’ he snarls, and his voice has the crunching undertone of hot coal stones, ‘I’ll toss you into the torturous rivers of Hell myself, and we’ll see how ready you are to jump off buildings and die then.’A demon and a teenage girl try to make a deal.
Relationships: Adachi Tohru & Kujikawa Rise, apparently this is SUCH an obscure character interaction that it didn't exist previously, except as a romantic pairing but this isn't that
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	it's not as if (i've lost my mind)

**Author's Note:**

> _[Time started: 16th June 20, 7:36pm;— ]_
> 
> Firstly, a few points to note:
> 
> 1) This entire idea spawned from a song from Beetlejuice the Musical, “Say My Name”. Most notably, [this animatic version that y’all should really check out cos wow.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE0ElmZm-6c)  
> 2) The title is also a lyric from that song.  
> 3) Aside from the one song, I have not heard anything from Beetlejuice the Musical. Nor do I know the plot.  
> 4) Neither have I watched the movie. (Was there a movie?)
> 
> Now that that’s out of the way, on to the actual fic! You can have the song on loop while reading this, I suppose, but this fic turned out a bit more sinister and a bit less… manic than what the actual song is like. I blame Adachi entirely. Rise also turned out surprisingly dark in this fic, though I’m not sure what I was expecting given that the girl lead in the inspired song is literally threatening suicide from what I can tell. (Fun fact: I briefly toyed with the idea of the girl in this being Chie for a while, but Chie’s a bit too straightforward for the mind games this fic requires. Yukiko was too demure, and Naoto would be too efficient.) As such, though this particular rendition of Rise Kujikawa is quite significantly different from canon in backstory and therefore of primary character motivations, I hope that I captured enough key elements to her spirit and worries that this is still a believable AU version of her.

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‘All I’m saying, girlie,’ the bored voice drawls, right next to Rise’s ear, ‘jumping off the top of this building isn’t going to do you  _ or  _ the daddy you’re trying to spite any favours.’

If Rise looks down, the distance between her and the empty grey concrete of the ground below looks both impossibly far and like nothing at all. And yet it’s the proximity of the deceptively benign-looking  _ loser  _ next to her that bothers her most.

‘What would  _ you _ know about dads?’ She retorts. ‘I bet demons don’t even  _ have  _ one of those.’

Aforementioned loser floats through the air to enter Rise’s line of vision. He’s magically defying all natural laws of physics Rise has ever learned in school by not plummeting to his death to the ground while doing so, all the while lounging casually on his back on nothing the way people would do on a couch instead. Rise wrinkles her nose, irritated, before moving pointedly away. You’d think a demon would know how to take a hint, but either the demon doesn’t notice Rise’s theatrically exaggerated actions or he just doesn’t give a crap. Probably the latter.

‘I may not have a dad, but I sure do know about daddy issues. Which is exactly what you have. Seriously,’ the demon rolls his eyes, twisting up from his position so that he’s standing in mid-air in front of her instead, head propped up on one hand and a finger tapping his cheek, ‘how much more clichéd could you get?’

Rise grits her teeth. Her hands that are gripping the railing she’s sitting on are shaking, though she would rather  _ die  _ than admit that to the demon in front of her. ‘You don’t understand  _ anything,’ _ she bites out.

‘And there’s that characteristic line!’ The absolute  _ asshole  _ in front of Rise claps his hands, smiling sarcastically. ‘Next you’re going to tell me that “nobody understands you”, or that your daddy’s “never truly seen you for who you are”, or words to that effect. Please. As if I haven’t heard all of that shit before. I’m an immortal  _ demon.’  _ The demon’s tail swishes behind him for emphasis. ‘You’re just another stereotype, girlie.’

‘Oh, like you’ve seen a million of me before?’

The demon sneers. ‘Sure have. There’s always a few thousand of you at any given time, down in Hell.’

Bile rises at the back of Rise’s throat, despite her willing it not to. She turns her face away so that the demon won’t see her retching.

‘So  _ that  _ gets an effect, huh?’

‘Go away.’

A loud sigh. ‘Believe me, I wish I could.’

_ ‘Then?’ _

‘But,’ the demon says, as though Rise hadn’t said anything at all—it’s all Rise can do to keep from screaming,  _ what  _ is it with men never paying attention to what she has to say? This demon, the guys at school, her own  _ father _ —while landing on his feet neatly next to Rise on the inside of the railings, ‘unfortunately, I’m actually here to stop you from doing, well, this.’

Rise raises her eyebrows in disbelief.

_ ‘You’re  _ here to  _ stop _ me from committing suicide?’ Her gaze flicks up and down the demon’s form, resting in particular on the horns curling out from the top of the demon’s unkempt black hair. ‘Last I checked, things like you are supposed to  _ encourage  _ me to jump off a building.’

‘Things like me?’ The demon barks out a short laugh. ‘Kids these days. Rude and getting ruder.’

‘Oh, I’m  _ sorry— _ am I supposed to give a creature like you  _ respect?’  _ Rise asks, snarky.

The demon’s eyes flash gold.

‘Watch it, girlie,’ he snarls, and his voice has the crunching undertone of hot coal stones, ‘I’ll toss you into the torturous rivers of Hell myself, and we’ll see how ready you are to jump off buildings and die then.’

Fear crawls, monstrous and instinctive, up Rise’s spine. She shivers, but defiantly, or maybe suicidally, she jerks her chin up and holds the demon’s gaze. She wouldn’t be on this rooftop planning to jump off of it if she had something as essential as a sense of self-preservation, after all.

After a seemingly endless moment, however, the demon sighs, and the golden flare of his eyes fades.

‘Or at least, that’s what I’d like to say,’ he says, shrugging as though he had been commenting on the weather and not threatening the eternal damnation of Hell, ‘but unfortunately that’s not quite the plan. See, I’m here to offer you a deal.’

‘A deal?’ Rise asks, suspicious. She swings her legs around and hops off the railings, but still stays a respectable distance away from the demon in front of her. The demon looks wholly unaffected by their entire conversation, by their situation—but Rise can see the tension of anticipation along his shoulders. All her life, Rise’s had to learn to navigate the expectations other people placed on her shoulders, expectations that they think she deserves because she’s pretty, because she’s a teenage girl, because she’s the daughter and heiress to a wealthy business CEO who has all the time in the world to tell her how to sit, eat, talk, or behave but suddenly and mysteriously always has an important phone call to make whenever she attempts to spend any time longer than just thirty minutes with him. Rise’s always being looked at, but she’s never been  _ seen,  _ but what this means is that Rise, in her years of living so far, has gotten very, very good at  _ seeing _ . And she can  _ see  _ the demon, across from her right now: he’s looking for something.

‘An exciting new opportunity for you, just a bunch of extra work for me.’ The demon yawns. ‘But I’ve been told if I don’t hit my minimum quota for the century, I’m going to be stuck doing paperwork, and I absolutely hate paperwork.’

‘There’s paperwork in hell?’

‘Oh please. We invented the concept. If you don’t think bureaucracy is the pinnacle of white-collar, middle-class torture then you’re still just a kid. We’re hell. We’ve  _ got  _ to have a little something for everyone.’

‘You need to hit a minimum quota?’ Rise ignores the jibe at her maturity. Not like she hasn’t heard  _ that  _ from other people before. Like her dad. Maybe her dad is actually a demon in disguise.  _ ‘What  _ minimum quota?’

The demon waves a hand. ‘That’s the side of things you don’t have to bother yourself with,’ he says. Rise narrows her eyes. ‘What  _ does  _ concern you, however—’

The demon saunters closer. Reaching out a skinny hand, he tips Rise’s chin up with one languid finger so that Rise is forced to look him in the eye. Rise itches with disgust. Men like him, demon or human or whatever in between, have always treated her the same.

‘Look, girlie,’ the demon hums, his voice low and compelling. ‘You want to get back at your dad, don’t you? Make him pay attention to you for once in your little life?’

Rise’s eyes, against her own judgment, slide halfway shut.

‘Well, I can give that to you.’ Rise’s surroundings seem to fade away to nothing but the demon, his voice enveloping her in the comfort of a promise, alongside a confidence that this promise can and will actually see itself through, unlike the myriad of other things that have fallen apart in Rise’s life. As if submerging her under the currents of a calming river, the demon’s voice lulls her closer and closer to the other side of the bank.

‘Summon me, Rise. Say my name. Say my name, and I’ll give you the power to  _ really  _ get back at your dad, to make him suffer for what he did to you. Nobody’s idiotic enough to turn away the best chance they’ve got at what they want, and you’re not an idiot, are you?’

The demon pauses.

‘Together, we could even  _ kill  _ him.’

And just like that, Rise feels as ice-cold as though she was plunged underwater. 

Wrenching open her eyelids, Rise tears herself away from the demon in front of her with a gasp. ‘ _ Kill  _ him? He’s my dad, I don’t want to kill him!’

The demon raises an eyebrow. ‘What, so  _ no  _ daddy issues then?’

‘No! I mean, yes, but– I mean, no, I don’t have  _ daddy issues,  _ ugh just get away from me!’ Rise stomps her way towards the edge of the building. ‘I’ve got half the mind to just throw myself down right  _ now—’ _

‘Woah, woah, woah.’ The demon sounds just the slightest bit frantic underneath all that cajoling. Like a sudden miracle he appears to Rise’s left, even though he had been behind Rise just mere seconds ago. One of his arms is stretched out in front of him and gripping the railing, blocking Rise’s path forward, even though he looks the picture of easy-going indifference. Rise glares at him, hoping the force of her gaze might actually melt the demon where he stands. ‘Hey now, no need to look at me like that.’

‘Oh, on the contrary, there is  _ every  _ need.’ Rise retorts. ‘You just suggested killing my father!’

The demon lifts his hands up in a placatory manner. ‘Hey, if that isn’t the way you want this to go, I’m quite alright with that too. I only suggested it because I thought that might be something  _ you’d _ want.’

‘I most certainly do not!’ Rise cries.

‘Jeez, okay, we won’t do it then. Didn’t I just say that?’ The demon sighs, looking weary. ‘God. You teenage girls are always so dramatic.’

That hits a nerve. ‘Well, I’m truly  _ sorry  _ for being a  _ teenage girl,’  _ she hisses. ‘I didn’t know there was a minimum  _ age  _ to hit before I can be taken  _ seriously.’ _

‘Did I say I don’t take you seriously?’ The demon asks, shrewd. He laughs. ‘Don’t get this twisted, that part’s all you. Oh man, oh man. You really are just ticking all the boxes for “angsty teenager”. Overly defensive, dramatic, self-absorbed. Does your dad even know you’re here? What does it matter if you take your petty revenge like this if he doesn’t even know about it?’

Rise turns away. ‘He’ll know about it eventually,’ she says. ‘Someone’s going to have to tell him they found my dead body on the ground below.’

‘Okay, sure. And then what? Did you even think this through?’ Rise’s silent. The demon ticks off a finger. ‘Here’s how it’s going to happen, girlie. You jump, you die, and sure he grieves, maybe even for a long time if he actually cares about you, but then what? He’s going to move on with his life. Kind of has to, that’s the whole point with living. Sure, he might finally  _ see  _ you, even acknowledge you exist, and you might think that’s a good enough reward that you’re willing to die for it, but it’s not as if you’re gonna be around to see it happen.’

The demon dissolves into black smoke in front of Rise’s very eyes, before coalescing again to Rise’s right, startling her. ‘Or what? You want him to follow you in death? As proof? But you clearly don’t want him to die.

So  _ seriously,’ _ the demon circles Rise once, infuriatingly tapping his chin in a deliberately cavalier way, ‘what  _ are  _ you trying to achieve?’

‘If you’re so smart, you come up with a better solution then!’ Rise snaps.

‘And what I’m  _ saying,’ _ the demon says, voice dropping low as neatly as a rabbit into a snare, ‘is that I can give that solution to you. Really make your daddy pay! With the supernatural on your side, there’s nothing you can’t do.’

Rise pauses, before asking, ‘okay, so what would I have to do?’

The demon smiles, pleased.

‘Well, all you have to do is say my name three times in a row. That’d unlock my full power, and I could  _ really  _ help you go to town then.’

‘What, you can’t do anything right now?’

The demon laughs. ‘Oh, I can do things alright,’ he says, setting his fingertips alight with flames as demonstration, ‘but it just takes considerably more energy. Think of it kind of like a machine—you’d be unlocking my most optimal processing speed. I’d be able to do more, and not only that, do it  _ faster. _ ’

‘What if I don’t want you to do more?’ Rise asks.

‘You’d be missing out on a truly grand opportunity, then.’ The demon shrugs his shoulders. ‘Your choice.’

Rise looks at him for a moment.

‘I don’t know your name, I hope you realise.’

The demon clasps his hands together. ‘Now we’re talking!’ He proclaims. It only sounds a little mocking. Then he scratches his head. ‘Oh, but this does present a problem. I’m not exactly allowed to say my own name.’

‘Spell it out, then,’ Rise suggests. ‘Or write it.’

The demon grimaces. ‘No, that won’t work either. Hell’s quite picky about this kind of thing.’

Rise puts a hand to her temple.

‘Jeez, what do we need to do, play charades or something?’

The demon snaps his fingers. ‘Hey, actually that might work.’

‘You’re kidding me, right.’ Rise deadpans, squinting at him.

‘You suggest it, you gotta do it,’ the demon sneers.

Rise rolls her eyes in response. ‘God, fine. Fine! Whatever. Just start it. How many syllables?’ The demon holds up three fingers. ‘Okay, three syllables. First syllable?’

The demon opens his mouth, revealing sharp canines, and points down his throat. Then he mimes something coming out of his mouth. ‘Uh, throat? Sing? Speak? The sound “ah”?’ Rise guesses.

The demon shakes his head at each one except the last, where he nods. ‘Okay, “ah”. Second syllable?’

‘What does that first syllable sound like with the fourth letter of the alphabet in front of it?’

‘Oh, so you’re talking now? I thought we were playing charades?’

‘Miming the whole thing would take up way too much time. You gotta learn how to cut corners when you can, girlie.’ The demon flaps a hand. ‘Anyway, answer my question.’

‘Uh, I guess it’d be… “da”?’

‘Clever girl!’ The demon praises, sardonically.

Rise glares, crossing her arms. ‘Do you want me to say your name or not?’

‘Oh, calm your horses, it was just a joke. Okay, for the last syllable: what do you hippy-dip humans call this?’ As Rise watches, a light seems to glow from within the centre of the demon’s chest, spidering its way across his body until it’s mapped out the demon’s nervous system from inside-out with a pale red force. The light pulses almost like a heartbeat. And Rise doesn’t get it  _ at all. _

‘What, blood?’ She asks, impatiently. ‘Having blood is hippy-dip now?’

‘What? No. Don’t be stupid, it’s not  _ blood.’ _

‘Nerves? Limbs? Body?’

‘One syllable.  _ One.’ _

‘Well,  _ what  _ are you referring to?’

‘Jesus Christ, did you not learn anything in school?’ The demon snaps.

‘In school I learned that demons aren’t supposed to be able to say “Jesus Christ” without bursting into flames or, for that matter,  _ exist,  _ so don’t go disparaging my education or lack thereof when that clearly isn’t the problem here,’ Rise snaps right back.

The demon pinches his brows.

‘Think more spiritual.’ He suggests. There’s a pained look of long-suffering patience on his face, as though he couldn’t believe he’s currently standing where he is debating the finer points of charades guessing with a sixteen-year-old. Joke’s on him though, since he’s the one who needs her to say his damn name at all.

Rise’s got the power here.

‘Spiritual?’ Rise repeats. ‘Okay—force? Life?  _ Chi?’ _

The demon looks about three seconds away from jumping off the building himself, but when Rise throws out that last word, he straightens up. ‘Yes. Yes! Wow, you actually got it.’

‘Easy with the attitude, demon-boy,’ Rise snarls. ‘Okay, so “chi”. So your name is—A-da-chi?’

When Rise sounds out the syllables to the demon’s alleged name, the atmosphere around them immediately shifts. A strange low heat curls into the air, raising the hairs along Rise’s arms and up her spine. The demon—Adachi—almost seems to swell in size, his shadow stretching a little longer along the floor.

‘Yep,’ Adachi says easily, almost offhandedly, as though his eyes aren’t flashing gold just from the first repetition alone. ‘Just say that, three times in a row, and then the two of us are good to go.’

Rise narrows her eyes.

‘Well, alright…’ she says, almost reluctantly.

‘Oh, relax, girlie. Nothing bad is going to come out of this.’ Adachi laughs, and the sound is as twisted as a smooth-skinned snake. ‘You’ll be getting what you want, after all. And how could anything bad come out of that?’

_ A million and one things, _ Rise wants to say. There’s always a price to everything. Rise learned that a long, long time ago. But she keeps her mouth shut.

‘Ready?’ Adachi asks.

‘Yep.’ Rise takes a deep breath, loud enough that even Adachi can hear it.

‘Adachi.’

The shadows on the floor waver like reflections on a water surface, before going back to normal. Adachi’s grin is huge.

‘Adachi.’ Rise repeats.

Adachi’s figure seems to grow in response to Rise’s chant, even though Rise can still see the demon right in front of her, still the same size and still standing in the same place, leaning his weight onto one side in a slouch. But there’s a thick air of red heat around him now, dense and coiling up like a spring. Adachi’s tense too—he’s no longer attempting to hide the anticipation curling tight along his shoulders. Any sound from around the two of them is muted, dampened—Rise can no longer hear the squawking of the city birds, or the whine of traffic below. Right now, it is only her, Adachi, and the long stretch of distance between the two of them like the crossing of a great wide divide.  _ Pay the toll,  _ Adachi’s expression promises,  _ and I can bring you to everything you’ve ever wanted. _

Rise squares her shoulders, and opens her mouth, but no sound comes out.

In an instant Adachi is in front of her, having cleared the distance between them in a mere second. ‘Hey now, don’t be afraid,’ he says, softly, and Rise would laugh at his frankly awful attempts at being beguiling if she isn’t actually suddenly terrified. ‘It’s okay, just go for it. Don’t you want your revenge? I can help you do everything you ever wanted to do against your dad, and more. All you have to do is say my name one more time, Rise.’

Adachi’s close enough now that he’s in her personal space, and he’s lifting her chin up with one hand. Rise lets her eyelids slide halfway shut. She doesn’t say the first syllable so much as breathe it out. 

‘Yes, come on, just two more syllables to go,’ Adachi encourages, voice still pitched low and silky. Or, well, his approximation of silky. Rise feels the corners of her own lips twitch upwards, but instead of doing anything like laugh, she just murmurs the second syllable of his name instead.

From the corners of her eyes, she watches her own shadow jump and balloon. The air around her takes on a reddish hue. Rise can smell fire and wood, and when she glances up from beneath her lashes, she can only see the bright gold of Adachi’s pupils.

‘Yep, there you go. Just the last syllable, come on, we can even say it together,’ Adachi encourages.  _ ‘Chi—’ _

‘—A  _ dumbass, _ you are, if you think I’m just going to say your name like that.’

Adachi blinks, dumbfounded, as Rise snaps her own eyes open and neatly pirouettes away from his grasp.

The air around them fades back to normal. The sound of traffic below fills Rise’s ears again, and Adachi’s eyes go back to black. And Rise stands a safe distance away from the demon, a hand on a cocked hip, while she grins, pleased and cheeky.

‘What?’ The demon demands.

‘Oh, a truly great offer you’re giving here,’ Rise says, making a show of inspecting her nails. This is what she’s always been good at, giving a show. It’s thrilling to know that she can do it well enough to fool even a demon. Years of managing other people’s expectations based on only an image of her means that she’s good,  _ great  _ at making others think that they have her where they want her to be, and that they had been the ones to lure her there. Because she’s a teenage girl, because she’s pretty, they don’t think she could ever see through their little games. But Rise always sees. Unlike those that only ever look at her, Rise has gotten very, very good at  _ seeing.  _ And she’s  _ especially  _ good at seeing when others are looking for something within her.

‘But you honestly didn’t think I would just  _ go along  _ like that, did you? Don’t think I didn’t notice you not giving the full terms and conditions of this entire business,  _ demon,  _ and I’m not in the habit of signing away anything without reading the fine print.’ Rise smiles sweetly. ‘Being the daughter to a business CEO, you sort of grow up knowing these things.’

The look of disbelief on Adachi’s face is morphing into fury. It’s the most open and honest expression Rise has seen on him this entire time, and Rise relishes in it with a sick sort of delight, the same way one would revel in the clean snap of a broken bone. Here they both are, finally standing at the starting line.

‘Do you really want to go head-to-head with a demon, girlie?’ Adachi asks, and his face is hideous in the way he’s glaring, eyes narrowed to dead-eyed slits and mouth turned downwards into an ugly scowl. ‘You have  _ no  _ idea what you’re playing with, here.’

Rise taps her cheek.

‘Well, you can go right ahead and kill me,’ she chirps. ‘But all you’ll be doing is giving me what I actually  _ want— _ meanwhile, you’re going to have to go through all the effort and tiring process of finding  _ another _ dejected and hapless soul to fulfil your “minimum quota”, lest you be stuck doing the paperwork you  _ oh-so-hate.’  _ Rise all but sings the last part.

‘And well, since you said you don’t want to do any paperwork, and since you hate putting in any extra effort in any way, wouldn’t you say that I’m your best bet, right now?’ Rise tips her head to the side, innocently. ‘What was it you said? “Nobody’s idiotic enough to turn away the best chance they’ve got at what they want”?’

Adachi’s mouth drops open in astonishment, and Rise watches as the realisation to how well and truly she played him hits him in all its glory. His eyes are gleaming golden as coins. Adachi clenches his jaw, and Rise bares her teeth at him in a razor-sharp smile, sweet as marzipan, bitter as cyanide. This is what he gets for underestimating her as just a stereotype the way he did. Rise hasn’t gotten this damn far in life by being completely self-absorbed. She’s faster, smarter,  _ better  _ than whatever he thinks.

The corner of Adachi’s lips curls up. But his smile is jagged and mean as the rusty edge of a serrated knife. ‘You absolute  _ bitch,’  _ he half-snarls, half-laughs, his fingers curling and uncurling at his sides as he leans forward in fascinated revulsion.

Oh please. Like  _ that  _ word’s hurtful to her. She’s sixteen, a teenage girl. She’s heard way, way worse.

Rise laughs back in return.

‘Please,  _ Adachi _ , you’re so  _ clichéd. _ Now, let’s talk through the terms of this offer again, shall we?’

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**Author's Note:**

> I’ll be honest: out of all the fics I thought I’d write for P4G, I didn’t think a demon!Adachi interacting with an (incredibly) AU!Rise would be the one I’d finish and post. But then again, my other idea for P4G is a multi-part monster of an AU spanning most of the game’s timeline, so I suppose it makes sense that I finish this spontaneous one-off idea first.
> 
> Considering that this fic follows the same narrative elements of the song it was inspired by, I could’ve written it all the way to the end. I indeed Could’ve. It would’ve been IMMENSELY satisfying to write Rise pushing Adachi off a building, but however 1) I already established that Adachi can float so that takes the wind out of my sails a little bit and 2) the second part of the song requires like, ghosts, and that needs its own whole recontextualization and I’m super Lazy.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys liked this! Leave kudos or comments if you did :))) I also have a [tumblr](http://guilty-lights.tumblr.com/), if you wanna stop by! 
> 
> _[Time ended: 19th June 20, 12:50am;— ]_


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